An opportunity for both teams
With their match practice in the tour opener against India A restricted to just 44 overs, the New Zealanders will be keen to get as much play as possible in the second game against the Board President's XI which commences at Jodhpur from October 5,
Partab Ramchand
04-Oct-1999
With their match practice in the tour opener against India A
restricted to just 44 overs, the New Zealanders will be keen to get
as much play as possible in the second game against the Board
President's XI which commences at Jodhpur from October 5, especially
since this three day game is their last fixture before the first Test
beginning at Mohali from October 10. Sure, they would also like to
win for there is nothing like a morale boosting victory, particularly
on the eve of a Test. But obviously the priority of the
tour management will be to give their batsmen and bowlers as much
match practice as possible. Indeed, if there is a choice during the
game of going for a win and opting for match practice, one suspects
that the tourists will opt for the latter.
The New Zealanders did not exactly cover themselves with glory at
Pune. They floundered against both pace and spin and could only score
135 for six in the limited time available to them. Unless they get
three days of sunshine at Jodhpur the visiting team's batsmen will not
be in the right frame of mind to tackle the reasonably strong
Indian attack. The bowlers who did not get a look in at Pune, will be
keen to bowl as much as they can at Jodhpur so that they can adapt
themselves to Indian conditions before taking on Tendulkar and company
in the first Test.
The young hopefuls representing the Board President's XI will be
wishing that they have better luck than their colleagues who played
for India A. With the match restricted to just about half a day, only
the bowlers could be seen in action by the selectors and they were
impressive enough with all the five principal bowlers picking up
at least one wicket in the few overs available to them. But batsmen
like Amol Muzumdar, Devang Gandhi and Wasim Jaffar missed out on a
chance to catch the selectors' eye.
The Board President's XI is a well balanced outfit. Led by Hrishikesh
Kanitkar, the team includes Vikram Rathour, Gagan Khoda, Sameer Dighe,
Virender Shewag, Harbhajan Singh, Rahul Sanghvi, Ashish Nehra and
Ashish Winston Zaidi. One can only hope that the match is not affected
by rain and that the wicket and weather conditions are ideal for three
days of non stop cricket. This will give the talented youngsters on
the Board President's XI a chance to prove their worth, as well as
provide the visitors badly needed match practice before the first
big game of the tour.